Roisin Markham

This mornings session in the studio began with my warmup morning pages. I write them on A4 page watercolour paper as sometimes I paint them also. I write to all 4 directions, a nod to celtic traditions and the earth. 4X writing is illegible and I like the crisscross pattern it makes. It’s a more efficient use of paper to – yep that’s how my brain works. Morning pages are not for rereading, they are a brain dumping process like opening the window in your room to let in fresh air.

You just let go, get all your worries, anger, frustration, anxiety, working things out, things you are happy about, excitement, achievements, anything. Morning pages are my way of listening to myself. I often have insights, connect to elusive ideas, they bring clarity and prim me for action. It’s a writing meditation, I know it’s a doing but it works for me and I like it as a practice.

I’ve had a piece of #plenty2share art on my desk for weeks. Perfectionism and ‘how do I finish it off’ delaying the process. At the weekend I sat with it and tried a couple of things slowly making progress. Yesterday evening I sat with it again. Perplexed even frustrated. Often my creative process stalls me or it feels like that. But I notice recently sitting reflection, waiting till I feel into the next piece is a significant part of my creative process. My logic brain tells me or my brain needs time to figure the next something out. My heart tells me to slow down I don’t need to be in a rush there is time for everything and waiting is part of creativity. Process has always been a huge part of what I create.

The #plenty2share piece, got finished off this morning after my morning pages. It’s packaged and ready to post. I’m looking forward to sending it & hope the person loves it!

I’m not anguishing over every piece I send out this was a special #plenty2share pre-felted gift.

After it was packaged up I began to work on this…

This is the rabbit hole.

Years ago someone leant me a really sophisticated sewing machine which I used for freehand stitching onto felt for an exhibition. I experimented with wadding, felt, transfers, materials and threads of different sorts. At that time I was exploring how to get text into felted pieces as an integrated part of the making. I had one piece I was happy with & exhibited “she told her stories to the sea” stitched on to an aquatic moody background.

Another experiment from that time has been skirting around the studio. Not put away or hidden. But has floated around almost whispering ‘you are going to continue this work’. The fabric was from a light curtain made by my mother-in-law circa 2002. It was cream coloured with text printed on it, I had used 2 layers and placed thick wadding between. Sandwiched I stitched warm yellow thread to almost reached the effect I wanted. The tension tight creating riffs and bumps. Freehand lettering was fun to create like a type of material graffiti. “How do we share our Once upon a”. It was a theme exploring the idea of how women shared their lived experiences. At the time I did not have meaningful space to share my stories and in particular my birth and pregnancy loss stories. I had tried unsuccessfully to create community project work around this but it never happened.

So this piece of art made it too my desk a while ago & the fabulously ornate letter O got cut out from ONCE. It was now a circle floating around different boxes teasing me to be inspired by it. It suggested flamboyant circular type stitching in wiry horse hair or wire, sculptural scribbles. It wanted to jump from flat to 3D. It proffered beaded protrusions as inspiration. Other things got moved on and off my desk. Occasionally my eye rested on this piece. This morning I began to stitch beaded protrusions. I thought I had rejected the scribbly stitching but maybe I have n’t yet.

The ‘share’ was cut from the original piece last week and packaged up as part of my #plenty2share artist prompt. Created as invitations for artists to respond in their own way and practice from my studio.

I sometimes am more interested in the story of something then the thing. Of how it all flowed together to get produced. Not all rabbit holes are interesting or too be shared. But perhaps it’s the construction and synthesis of the work that brings its meaning to be meaningful.